Comma, Period

Comma, Period -- Dave Pollard starts with an essay on punctuation, and ends up talking about real-time communication...

"Anyone under 25 would probably think this post, and Mr Rosenthal's op-ed, pointless and esoteric. The young are learning to think and write almost entirely in real time, precisely the way they talk, and they have willingly traded off the time and the value that comes from careful composition, editing and reflection, in favour of an iterative, 'successive approximation' means of communicating. In such a world, punctuation may soon be seen as an affectation, not a tool for comprehension.

"I suspect that this conflict of language cultures will bring about a revolution in the way in which we use language. That revolution will face its first bloody battles in the universities, where the established elite are heavily invested in old ways of written communication. Once that battle has been won, the war front will move on to business, where the carnage will be even worse, and will I suspect produce a 'generation gap' unlike anything we've seen since the 1960s. The next generation will have no tolerance for formal meetings, PowerPoint slides and long reports, and with their more oral culture will quickly learn to blow us away when they speak impromptu from the podium or look for learning or consensus in self-organized workgroups that will be substantially paper-free.

"After this revolution, all we'll have left to write about is whether the result has been more understanding, or less."